A different prespective to Life

The marathon officially is about 42.195 kilometres (approximately 26 miles 385 yards) and it was said to have been started according to legend, by a   Greek soldier named  Pheidippides , who was a courier runner messenger from the  Battle of Marathon  to Athens (490 BC), who reported the victory. He was said to have died immediately after delivering the message of victory over the Persians. Unfortunately,  Pheidippides  time was not recorded, t he winner of the  first modern Olympic marathon , on 10 April 1896 (a male-only race), was Spyridon Louis, from Greece, in 2 hours 58 minutes and 50 seconds (2:58:50:0). In 2018 at Berlin, Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge took the official record at last year's race, was 2:01:39:0. Hence, those in the know knew that it was only a matter of time when someone ran below 2 hours time mark. The battle to beat the 2-hour marathon is like another similar battle of speed, determination and forbearance, some years ago, the race...

Up till the 18th century, most of sub-Saharan Africa was unexplored apart from the coastal regions. The rest of the world was had been colonized and conquered, the Americas, Asia, Oceania, etc. British, France, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, and Belgium ships had been crating away their riches. Africans had the Atlantic slave trade which crated away from millions of them and wreaked havoc on their civilizations and wiped out entire kingdoms. But this was not done directly by the invaders, Europeans, colonists but by their intermediaries or collaborators who were disenfranchised or enraged minorities to the status quo then, who acted as their active agents and were handsomely paid in arms, alcohol, cotton, and trinkets or by the demise of their perceived enemies. But generally, the African Kingdoms were left on their own and direct contact with Europeans was limited and restricted. The thing that was "protecting" Africans from the direct involvement of Europeans was Malaria, wh...

This is a documentary that involves the US, Israel and Iran. It is about a malicious sophisticated software code called Stuxnet which is a computer worm. A worm, unlike a computer virus which like its named biological equivalent, since a virus requires a cell host to replicate itself. But the computer worm can self replicate and activate itself. The code was well written, with no bugs and it has a zero-day exploit.  Which means it could infect the computer immediately, as day zero is an undisclosed computer-software vulnerability that hackers can exploit to adversely affect computer programs, data, additional computers or a network. It is known as a "zero-day" because a virus or worm usually reported or announced before becoming active, but this is activated immediately.  In Stuxnet, there were several zero days. Those with experience in looking at the code security as the professionals they came to the conclusion that it looks like a code written by a nation-state pro...

Just finished watching a series on Netflix, "When They See Us", consisting of 4 episodes; these were all directed by Ava DuVernay, who also directed  13th  and  Selma .  It was made for Netflix, and it follows the story of five 14 to 16-year-old Harlem teenagers of colour called the " Central Park Five " who were arrested for raping and molesting a 28-year-old white female jogger in New York Central Park in 1989.  The story was built around their lives and what happened on the day of the incident. The fact that the boys were arrested by a biased police force with a white female lead, Ms Linda Fairstein, who was then the sex crimes chief in the Manhattan district attorney's office, and she was determined to get them. She said, "Every young Black male who was in the park last night is a suspect in the rape of that woman."  That throws innocent until proven guilty out the window. The police were biased and out to make an arrest from the very beginning ...

I had the opportunity to attend a debate yesterday at the Tea House Theatre, near Vauxhall station in South East London. The debate motion was “ This House believes the Caster Semenya ruling is unfair ”.  The running order was 6.30 pm - 6.45 pm: Introduction to the debate 6.45 pm - 7.45 pm: Public debate and audience Q&A 7.45 pm - 8.00 pm: Break 8.00 pm - 8.45 pm: Showcase debate 8.30 pm - 9.00 pm: Post-debate drinks As it was my first time attending, I managed to find the place easily, and the surroundings were excellent. It is a nice pub at the end of the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens in the centre of London. It was not far from Vauxhall Underground Tube Station. Amateurs and students from the debating club led the public debate. The issue was well thought out, and in the end, I sided with the notion that the ruling was unfair. It seemed they had specifically targeted Ms Caster Semenya . But later, when the professional debaters dissected the issue and the...

There is a book I am currently reading on great and good ideas. One of the numerous example given is that of Dr Barry Marshall.  The Australian doctor turned the treatment of peptic ulcers on its head and was subsequently awarded a Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine. This doctor noticed that most of the patient with ulcers had a stomach bug Helicobacter pylori . It lives in the stomach and is shaped like a corkscrew and is able to burrow into the mucus lining of the stomach and hence avoid the acidic environment. The bacteria H. Pylori also uses chemotaxis to neutralize the acid producing a large amount of urease which breaks down the urea present in the stomach to form carbon dioxide and ammonia. These neutralise the acid. After Dr Marshall produces his report in Australia he was ridiculed by the established doctors and scientists. Most of them did not believe that any bacteria would survive in the hostile acidic environment of the stomach. The stomach does produc...

  In his 1798 book  An Essay on the Principle of Population , Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus observed that a nation's food production increased arithmetically  (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, etc.), but population growth increased geometrically (1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, etc.). Reverend Malthus postulated that there would be a point when the population growth would outstrip food production. This has since been known as the Malthusian Trap , in that " Populations had a tendency to grow until the lower class suffered hardship, want and greater susceptibility to  famine  and  disease ". Malthus essay is one of the articles that Charles Darwin, who had an experience of breeding pigeons, read that lead him to think of evolution because there was a constant "battle" between populations of species for survival, he deduced that those which have advantageous genes will be "selected" naturally as the disadvantaged will die out i.e. go extinct. Our dear ...